MMOs and game design

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I love the World Cup in the same way that I love Christmas. Neither of them is my religion, but I enjoy the general festivities. Given that the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, I’m mildly surprised that so few MMOs have come up with any football related features or trophies to celebrate. WoW had a special PvP pet for the Chinese Olympics, after all.

Only Free Realms chose to celebrate, with special team jerseys and banners. So well done them.

Lots of Gaming Companies announce what they plan to show at E3

E3 is next week. I’m trying to avoid the sort of news cycle where people announce what they’re going to say, then they say it, and then they announce what they just said. So there will be lots of entries in next week’s news about what actually did catch my eye at E3.

Kotaku lists out their picks for big RPGs of the show. It’s hard to really get worked up about a bunch of sequels, but MMOs also promise a strong showing with the likes of APB, Final Fantasy 14, and the ubiquitous SWTOR all exhibiting. Fable III promises to be Natal infused – people without a huge living room may see this as a disadvantage. Intriguingly, The Escapist had a line on some information that Pokemon Black/White may also feature some kind of massive multiplayer worldwide online play mode.

It is likely that the Playstation Move and XBOX Natal controllers will feature strongly in demos. Analyst Michael Pachter wrote a widely linked piece for Edge Online in which he compares the two technologies, and explains why neither will beat the Wii. In an interview with PS3center, he also explains why he thinks Natal will sell more than the Move. Soon, we’ll all be able to make up our own minds.

Valve admitted that Portal 2 will not in fact be out until 2011, and added (probably with a sigh) that next week’s surprise is actually Portal 2 related. Which I think I guessed last week because it was obvious! This did not stop loads of gaming blogs from wasting column inches on guesses about Halflife 3.

Cataclysm News

Blizzard will of course not be at E3 because they have Blizzcon instead later this year. But still, lots more news this week about Cataclysm. Blizzard revealed that the new expansion will bring region-wide battlegrounds. So instead of only ever matching up with servers in your battlegroup, you could end up in a match with anyone in your region. We don’t yet know whether Blizzard also plan to extend this to PvE/ LFD.

And they also held a press event, releasing the news that some of the previously discussed Cataclysm features will not make it into the live expansion. In particular, guild talents have hit the chopping block (and good riddance, that system would never have worked. No one wants to be arguing with the rest of their guild about which talents to take) and so has the path of the titans alternate advancement scheme (which is more of a shame because that sounded fun.)

Inscription also gets an overhaul so that players only need to buy glyphs once to learn them, after which they can switch glyphs without needing to buy more scrolls. Plus a new type of glyph for cosmetic changes.

I’ll discuss this more in a post next week but basically it’s all good news and means that the Blizzard behemoth is lumbering towards the release of the new WoW expansion at a decent pace. Apparently Cataclysm is also going to have three times as many new quests as Wrath – but this does also include the low level ones that will have been reworked.

Ghostcrawler also had an exclusive interview with wowhead this week and they talk about professions, balancing PvP with PvE, and so on. Definitely worth a read.

Given that Icarus Studios had to lay off staff earlier this year, Fallen Earth players may feel that this is a chance to actively support a studio with a product they like which has had a financial rough patch. I’m just not sure how I feel about cash shop purchases as charity.

Everything goes 3D

Sony held a big presentation this week to share their vision for 3D TV and gaming. As well as showing off some new 3D TVs, the PS3 is about to receive a firmware patch which will allow players to use them.

Anyone planning on shelling out for a 3D TV to try some of this out? If they can produce experiences that are as immersive as Avatar (for example) then maybe Sony are right about 3D being the future of gaming.